By A Loving Hand
by Unoriginality
Summary: When Bucky disappeared for a few hours, scaring both Maria and myself, I knew exactly where he'd gone, and the old habits from DC that he was falling back on. I could only pray that those habits wouldn't come back to stay. (A BTWWL fic.)


Bucky's need for routine had practically created a calendar for when he'd stay the night with Maria and when he'd stay home with me. It varied a bit, as would have to, but Bucky was consistent about splitting his time between his girlfriend and me, landing mostly in my favor. But Saturdays were nights with Maria and I could just take Sharon somewhere or stay home and turn into a lonely vegetable if I didn't like it.

That actually worked well for me; I had found a local church where I could attend Sunday morning services. Bucky staying overnight with Maria meant that he wasn't around to be woken by me getting dressed and leaving in the morning. I didn't think he'd care if I woke him; he'd probably have breakfast ready for me when I got back if he were around.

I just felt more comfortable going to church and not leaving Bucky at home on his own in the process. I didn't like leaving him alone, period. Knowing he wouldn't be while I was there put me at ease. And kept him from following while armed to the teeth to protect me from Hydra or whatever other threats his mind came up with. It was bad enough I wore my own sidearm in church of all places, I didn't need a paranoid bodyguard distracting me from the service. Trying to pray while seated next to a bored, one man army probably wouldn't work well.

So him sleeping somewhere else on Sunday mornings suited me fine.

We usually got home about the same time, me back from the mid-morning services just as he dragged his sleepy butt in from Maria's place. I walked through our apartment door, barely noticing as it shut on its own and locked as I slipped out of my suit jacket. "Buck, I'm home," I said, not having really looked around the apartment.

Bucky, it seemed, had decided to sleep in more or just stay later at Maria's that morning.

I dismissed it; it wasn't the first time it'd happened, and I knew he'd have JARVIS let me know if something out of the ordinary was going on. So I simply changed out of my church clothes and into regular day wear.

Lunch came and went, with no call and no sign of Bucky. I was tempted to call over there, to see if they'd even surfaced for air, although I really didn't want details, but I let it be. He'd let me know if something was going on.

Hours ticked by and I started to worry. I knew I shouldn't, he was three doors down from me, it wasn't like he wasn't safe. He might've just lost track of time, I'm told that's easy to do when you're with a bedmate.

It hit just shy of dinner time and I decided the hour and my worry justified calling over there and demanding they either unattach from each other's hips and other body parts and send Bucky home, or at least feel guilty enough to say a few Hail Marys for not calling me to let me know he'd be late.

"JARVIS, will you put in a call to Maria's place?" I asked, moving into line-of-sight of the screen that acted as many things, but right now as part of the Avengers's teleconference system. After confirmation, JARVIS brought up the video phone program.

The line beeped a few times before Maria answered. "This is Hill."

She was never going to break that habit.

"Why didn't I get a call earlier if Bucky was going to stay late with you?" I asked. "If you want to keep him gagged and propped up in a corner, that's fine, but I would like a call."

The worry I'd felt all day etched itself across her face with a good helping of shock. "Steve, he went home hours ago."

I felt my heart stop and restart. "He's not here, there wasn't a note or-" Something occurred to me and I held up a finger. "Hold that thought. What kind of mood was he in when he left?"

"He seemed a little lost in thought," Maria said, sounding ready to shoot out the door and comb the entire Tower and possibly the whole island to find him. "He told me he just hadn't gotten enough sleep. We were up a little later than usual."

My mind floated back to the roof of our old apartment, how he could disappear for hours up there when something was on his mind. "I have an idea where he might be," I said, walking over to the bookcase and searching through the various notebooks and sketchbooks we had. I couldn't find the one with his notes on positron production, the problem he worked on when he felt frustrated with something else.

I went back into view of the screen. "I think he's up in the penthouse. One of his notebooks is missing."

That didn't entirely reassure Maria. "It's been hours and he hasn't even called you? No note?"

"Something's on his mind," I said. "Don't panic, he used to do this in DC. I'll go find him, see what's up."

Maria's eyes narrowed and I got the feeling that the next time she saw Bucky, he was going to get his ears burned off. "Tell him that next time he feels like disappearing, he can leave a note."

"I will," I assured her. "It's just an old habit of his from DC, you know how he is about habits. We'll get him into a new one if this becomes normal." I hoped not. Bucky seemed to have walked a million miles away from that lab in Kiev since we relocated to the Avengers Tower, and the idea of him regressing back to finding high places to hide for hours at a time sat uncomfortably with me.

Just in case Bucky was where I thought he was and wasn't wanting to come downstairs just yet, I grabbed my current sketchbook- about half filled -and my drawing pencil and headed down to the elevator.

The penthouse was lit up when I stepped off the elevator, although I didn't see anybody there. JARVIS only turned the penthouse lights on when the room was in use. I walked into the room, taking a tour of the main sitting area, looking for signs of Bucky having been there. I knew damn good and well that he would've been the one to come up here.

I finally spotted his notebook and a dull and short pencil on one of the tables in the corner by an oversized chair that Bucky liked to sit in. He said he claimed it because it was big enough for him to cross his legs. I set my sketchbook and pencil- in much better shape -down on the table next to his and looked around. He wasn't anywhere in the room.

The image of the roof demanded my attention again and drew my gaze to the thick glass that separated the penthouse from the landing pad used when the Avengers needed a flight somewhere. The door looked closed, but looking past it, out the windows, I finally spotted Bucky, sitting out on the concrete some distance from the glass.

Praying that this wasn't going to become a habit again, I headed out through the door. I knew Bucky heard me as he approached him from behind, but he didn't react. He didn't have reason to, the only ones who could get up there were the Avengers.

I sat down next to him. "I'd ask you what you're doing up here," I said, and he glanced over at me as I made myself as comfortable as possible on concrete, "but I think it'd be a dumb question. So I'm going to ask what's on your mind, instead."

Bucky looked down at his folded hands on his lap, the metal hand gleaming in the not-quite-setting sun. I waited patiently, giving him time to translate whatever was going on in his head into words. He'd gotten better at that, but if something was bothering him, it became difficult. So I wasn't going to push him.

"Does Sharon make you feel your own age again?" he finally asked without looking up. "Instead of being almost a century old?"

"Sometimes," I said. Then I leaned forward to try to get him to look at me instead of his hands. "Relationship problems?"

He didn't look at me right away, his expression scrunching up on one side, like a 'yes and no' was about to pop out of his mouth. "No, not really. Not the relationship itself."

"Then something else."

He sat up straighter, finally making eye contact. "You're annoying, Rogers."

"And you're dodging the issue. What's on your mind? Something's got you out here, and you can't tell me you didn't pick this spot because it's the only place here like the roof of our apartment."

Bucky continued to try to sidestep me. "No, I just wanted to be outside. It's nice out."

I gave him my best cynical look of disbelief, which was probably not as good as his was. "You didn't leave a note, Bucky. Something is bothering you." I looked around over the city. "And quite frankly, the fact that you're looking for high perches outside worries me. You haven't done this since we moved here."

He looked like he was a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar. "It's not anything deep and serious, Steve. Not like the shit I was working through back then."

"But still something enough to make you come up here without remembering to leave a note," I said. "Something about your relationship with Maria has you working through something. Let me help."

Bucky looked back out over the city. "Give me a minute."

I knew that meant he was back to moving images and feelings into words. Way back when he finally started talking about things, he made it very clear that he needed time to do that, and to be patient with him. So patient I was, waiting while his brain worked.

"She makes me feel like I'm twenty-eight again, not ninety-nine. My own proper age." That sounded like both a good and bad thing to me, so I kept my mouth shut and let him continue on his own time. He unfolded his hands to clench his left hand into a fist a few times. "But this wasn't part of me back then." He made a frustrated noise. "I don't even know where I'm going with this, Steve. Just let me think up here for awhile."

I glanced back towards the lit up penthouse. "Okay. I brought up my sketchbook, I'll wait in there. When you're ready to talk, let me know."

He grunted an acknowledgement, not looking at me as I got up and headed back inside. I sat down on the loveseat, the side closest to the chair Bucky usually claimed, and grabbed my book and started doodling.

Doodling moved to proper drawings as I started recreating our old apartment onto paper with pencil. The kitchen that had been too crowded for two people to be in at once and it was amazing there was room for a dishwasher in that place. The small dining table with the bookshelf behind where I usually sat. The tiny living room with a couch that was rarely used, why I couldn't even remember. I sketched every detail that had stuck with me, working down the hall to the bathroom with sputtering pipes and a meticulously organized sink.

I was sketching the bedroom when Bucky finally came back in. I looked at him over the top of my book, not pushing, letting him have control of the situation, as long as it didn't involve going back downstairs.

He plopped himself into his chair next to me. "I think I figured it out."

I lowered my book to rest on my lap. "I'm listening."

"It's this damn arm," he said, staring down at his left fist. "She makes me feel like I used to be, just ... just a man. But every time I so much as brush her with my left hand and she jumps because it's cold and I can't feel it, it-" He took a deep breath. "It puts me right back through all that. This arm is a weapon, it was made to kill people."

"It doesn't matter what it was made to do, Bucky," I said. "It's your arm. It's part of you."

"I know," he said, face and tone both reluctant to say that. "And you guys all seem to treat it like it's normal, and I'm grateful, but..." He trailed off again, giving his metal fist a dirty look like it was directly responsible for the block between thoughts and mouth. "I can't touch her with this. It's cold, there's no sensation, I can't tell what I'm doing to keep from hurting her with it. The only intimacy this hand was ever intended on having was with a gun. Not with a woman I care about."

His arm had been an object of contention in his brain off and on since he first came home, so I wasn't entirely surprised that this was what was bothering him. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Have you talked to Maria about this?"

Bucky shook his head. "No. I don't want her to understand what this arm means to me. I don't want her to see the weapon."

I set my sketchbook down on top of his notebook and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, once again trying to get him to look at me. "Bucky, she already know about the Winter Soldier. She's seen the case files, she's seen the project files, she knows. She obviously doesn't care."

His finger started to tap on his thigh. I wish I knew when that habit had developed. He'd been doing it as long as we'd lived together. "It's one thing to read about it, you know that. She makes me feel young again, the arm feels heavier when I'm reminded it's there."

I could see where he was going with this, recognized his old dissociative defenses returning. I moved to cut them off at the pass. "Bucky, you are allowed to be a person even after Hydra's experiments. You don't have to try to be who you were before just to deserve a woman you care about and want to be with. You're a person _now."_ I motioned to his tapping finger. "That arm is only a weapon when you want it to be. Talk to Maria about this."

Bucky snorted. "She'll probably smack me for not doing it in the first place." Then he sighed. "I know, I know. She's even already told me that she doesn't care about the arm, but that was before we started sharing a bed a few nights a week. I just don't want to- I don't know. It wasn't meant to love someone."

"And I'm going to remind you again that it doesn't matter what Hydra intended it for, it's yours, it's part of you, and you get to make the choice of what it's for or not for." I sat back. "And quite frankly, if she has a problem with your arm during intimacy, she doesn't deserve you."

Bucky tilted his head back, eyes rolling up to stare at the ceiling. "I know she won't, Steve. Bring the overprotective possessiveness down a notch."

I felt mildly insulted, mostly because he wasn't saying anything untrue. "I don't think it's unreasonable for me to want a woman that accepts everything about you for you to love."

Bucky rolled his head to look at me, still laying back against the back of the chair. "Speaking of women that may or may not deserve us, when're you gonna propose to Sharon?"

Oh thank you, Bucky. Thank you so much for that. I was going to plot revenge later. "I dunno," I said with a shrug. "Maybe not at all. I'm not sure."

"Not at all?" Bucky was all about incredulity with that statement. "Steve, I've seen your browser history, you've been looking at engagement rings."

I wanted my notebook and pencil back for something to focus on besides him and the conversation. "It's an idle thought," I said. "I'm not sure we're ready. There's some things I want to get her stance on before we go any further than just dating."

"Like?"

I gave him a heavy stare. "This was supposed to be a conversation about you and your girl."

"Yeah, and we had that part. My turn to interrogate you."

I didn't want to admit that it was only fair, but it really was. So I shifted on the couch, making myself more comfortable. "Kids, for one. Mostly that one, actually."

Bucky sat up. "Think she won't want them?"

"More worried that she will."

That seemed to shock Bucky. "Steve, you like kids. You mentioned wanting them a couple times back in the day."

I shrugged. "Yeah, and now I have mutated DNA to pass along that may cause problems. Sure, there's adoption, but we'd be in even bigger trouble with a kid than we would've with Tony's cat. If we all get called out, who's going to babysit, JARVIS?"

"So she needs to be okay with not having kids."

"And with having you as a roommate, because unless you and Maria decide to move in together, I'm not kicking you out for her."

Bucky shook his head. "You're stuck with me. Maria and I already discussed that, we're happy having our own space separate from each other." He reached over and dug his notebook and stubby pencil out from under my stuff. "Come on, let's get home. I have to call my girlfriend and get yelled at for scaring the shit out of you two and being an ass."

I grabbed my book and pencil. "You know, all you had to do was leave a note. You've dug your own grave on this one."

"Yeah, yeah." He stood, and looked at me in a way that made me pause from getting up. "Thanks."

I smiled. "You know I'm always here when you need someone to listen, Buck. I'd be a bad best friend if I wasn't." He looked ready to say something self-deprecating if his expression was any indication and I cut that one off right away. "Don't. Whatever it is, don't. Come on, let's go home."

"All right. JARVIS? Turn off the lights after us."

"Yes, sir."

The penthouse went dark as the elevator doors closed and took us home.


End file.
